Last night when they had the robots going through the house in Redlands looking for bombs, you could see my brother-in-law's place in the background. Bit of a nerve-wracking evening for the family, but all's well.

Mongrel wrote:Separate point. Today's shooting was odd. Firs off, it was a husband-and-wife team, which was certainly different, second it was this weird extremist terror slash workplace shooting hybrid. Like the guy was clearly preparing for an extremist attack, with multiple guns, tac gear and even IEDs, but I can't help but wonder if something else was the original planned target and the workplace was a heat-of-the-moment change.

... what a disturbingly blasé post. :/

It's just sad someone with mental issues can get... oh what? His name's Farook? WE SUSPECT TIES TO ISIS.

No reason it can't be both (for another example, google Chiheb Esseghaier). That extremism is involved in some capacity seems fair given his family has been quoted as saying he was extremely, even zealously religious.

I feel like it's a stretch to say any organization would go as far as to have one of their own marry someone, radicalize them personally for years, and then launch an attack with only two people. As a plan, that seems lengthy and inefficient.

To me, it feels like she held really extreme views, married this religious guy, and easily radicalized him, and then the two either reached out to a larger organization, or started planning this attack on their own.

It's really weird that they chose the San Bernardino public fucking health department for their massacre. They must've just figured it was the easiest way to kill a large gathering of people.

Well, the guy worked there for five years, so that's the "why there?" - sort of. It IS a weird location for a wannabe terrorist attack, so that's why I'm thinking that maybe it's possible they had another location in mind originally and this just became a spur of the moment change.

It doesn't really seem to matter what the targets are in particular, as long as they're full of innocent people. If you can just waltz into a crowd with a rifle and unload, you don't need a plan or centralised leadership. Individuals can act on their own initiative in their own neighbourhoods and by the time they get killed by the cops they've already provided a good return-on-investment in terms of body count. The more shocking and random the crime, the more it benefits ISIL's bottom line: trying to make sure everyone in the universe hates Muslims so much that they have no choice but to throw their lot in with ISIL.

LaserBeing wrote:If you can just waltz into a crowd with a rifle and unload, you don't need a plan or centralised leadership. Individuals can act on their own initiative in their own neighbourhoods and by the time they get killed by the cops they've already provided a good return-on-investment in terms of body count.

This is to an extent why I'm getting a concealed carry permit. I don't plan on carrying most of the time (work is just down the road and both home/work are safe areas, plus also corporate policies say no being armed at work so I don't wanna get fired) but if I have to go in to the city I live next to (#4 most dangerous in NY as of last year) or another two cities a short drive away (#1 and #9) I'd like the option of being armed. I'm not gonna lie to myself and be like "oh I have a gun, nothing bad can happen to me", but if it's life or death, I can guarantee that I'll be present when on average the police are 10 minutes away.

The other reason is that under New York State law I can't inherit my grandfather's war trophy from World War 2 (the weakest and least reliable handgun issued in World War 2) until I have a carry permit.

Grath wrote:The other reason is that under New York State law I can't inherit my grandfather's war trophy from World War 2 (the weakest and least reliable handgun issued in World War 2) until I have a carry permit.

Mongrel wrote:Well, the guy worked there for five years, so that's the "why there?" - sort of. It IS a weird location for a wannabe terrorist attack, so that's why I'm thinking that maybe it's possible they had another location in mind originally and this just became a spur of the moment change.

This certainly seems like the most likely situation. They had probably months if not years of prep, were still in the middle of making bombs and left most of their ammo behind. They didn't even use the bombs they already had good to go. It seems like an incredibly unstable person decided they were bigger than they actually were and ended up ruining what could have been a major attack for personal release (getting back at coworkers for whatever wrong he felt was committed against him). It's just too bad the take-away isn't 'terrorism isn't an islamic thing, it's a deranged nutjob thing' for most people but simply 'don't trust anyone named Farook.

I mean, yes, but this just seems like run-of-the-mill domestic terrorism. IS(or isis, isil or whatever we're calling them in America now) is so fast to claim these kinds of things that we'd know by now if this was their plan.

If anything see above, they maybe were discussing SOMETHING with them, but not this. Either way though I heard a good point on the radio that just the fact that the FBI is still unable to say 'yes' or 'no' to the question of if there was even a relationship shows how useless everything in place to monitor those types of things is.

Grath wrote:The other reason is that under New York State law I can't inherit my grandfather's war trophy from World War 2 (the weakest and least reliable handgun issued in World War 2) until I have a carry permit.

The Nambu?

Nambu Type 94, yup. The one with the exposed trigger bar so that you can fire it without pulling the trigger.

It's a shame that it's one of those. The original Nambu pistols like the type 14 were actually pretty good pistols despite being debatably under-powered. William Ruger even designed the very successful, ubiquitous Ruger 22 target pistol based heavily on the original Nambu pistols.

I'm gonna have to break with most of those on the left and say that I don't support using the Terror Watch List to restrict gun sales. Which has nothing to do with my views on gun control and everything to do with my views on the Terror Watch List. I was against it under Bush, and I can't in good conscience be for it now just because there's a Democrat in the White House.

I don't even think the No-Fly List should be used to prevent people from flying (remember that time the Bush Administration put Ted Kennedy on it? Hilarious.), let alone depriving people of constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

I'm not opposed to the watch lists on principle, but I think they're badly in need of reform. At least for US citizens, there needs to be some way for people on the list to find out they're on the list and challenge it, and/or a narrow window in which the government can keep them on the list before either charging them with something or removing them.